Safdar Abbasi, Nahid Khan form new PPP faction

ISLAMABAD: Disgruntled PPP leaders Dr Safdar Abbasi and Nahid Khan Friday announced formation of a new political platform of the Pakistan People’s Party Workers after getting registration of their new faction.
“We want to make it very clear that the PPP Workers is neither a group nor a separate entity but it is formed in the same circumstances in which the PPP Parliamentarians was registered for election purposes in 2002. We are the PPP and we shall remain the PPP and no one has the right or authority to take away this identity from poor masses of this country who are the true heirs of Bhutto’s legacy,” said Dr Safdar Abbasi while addressing a press conference along with his wife and ex-political secretary of Benazir Bhutto, Nahid Khan as well as other office bearers of the PPP Workers.
Prior to the press conference, the PPP Workers convention was held which elected Dr Safdar as its president and former MPA from Punjab Assembly Sajida Mir as its secretary general.Safdar said their leaders are Rehbar Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Rehnuma Benazir Bhutto and Madre Jamhuriat Begum Nusrat Bhutto and these three offices are forever dedicated to these great leaders. “Moreover, we get inspiration from Garhi Khuda Bux and will try our best to bring all the old guards into party fold by honouring their contributions,” he added.
He said it was very painful and agonising for the true and ideological workers of the PPP to witness the ever declining popularity graph of a party that they and their martyred leaders nurtured with their blood and unprecedented sacrifices. “A party that was the symbol of the federation of Pakistan has been confined to a few districts of Sindh only as in the 2013 elections wherein the PPP vote bank dropped from 37 percent to mere 15 percent and the recently held local bodies elections in the cantonments clearly demonstrate this fact,” he added.
Safdar said throughout the tenure of the party’s last government, while raising concerns at different forums they allowed the present inept and unlawful leadership of the party to continue with the hope that sanity might prevail. However, he said when Asif Ali Zardari, in the dual office case, disowned the PPP and declared it as an NGO in order to save his presidency. “After that episode, we concluded that further silence would be criminal and decided to take the issue head on. As law abiding citizens and political workers, we approached the Election Commission to get the PPP registered for the party workers,” he said.
He said three broad objectives to register the PPP Workers were to reorganise the party on true ideological and democratic lines, accountability of all those who are responsible for the present state of affairs in the PPP and to democratise and institutionalise the party by holding intra-party elections at all levels.
To a question regarding allegations of former Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza on Asif Zardari, Safdar asked the former president to himself explain his position rather than camouflaging him behind the other leaders of the PPP.